The film, which also stars One Direction member Harry Styles , is released next year and tells the story of the mass evacuation from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk by allied forces in 1940.

It also marks a reunion of some of the key players in the Dark Knight trilogy, with Christopher Nolan directing and Cillian Murphy starring alongside Hardy, who famously played Bane in The Dark Knight Rises.

Tom Hardy's new film Dunkirk will be hitting the big screen in July 2017 (Image: John Phillips/Getty Images)

The dramatic trailer, released on Wednesday (December 14) features heavy gun fire, explosions and the One Direction star struggling under water.

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The evacuation of Dunkirk, codenamed Operation Dynamo, is seen by historians as a key chapter in the fight against Hitler’s Germany. It was made possible by a hastily assembled flotilla of hundreds of merchant marine boats, fishing boats, pleasure craft, and lifeboats, known as the little ships of Dunkirk, which helped 338,226 allied troops escape capture.

The film also stars Harry Styles

The unlikely rescue boosted British morale and meant and enabled Allies to later launch the counter attacks which would eventually turn the tide against Nazi Germany.

Wartime Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill would later refer to it as “a miracle of deliverance”.

The film, which also stars Kenneth Brannagh and Mark Rylance, is released July 2017.